Rahul Gandhi congratulates Capt Amarinder on landslide victory

Chandigarh/New Delhi, March 14 (Jaswinder Azad)- AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday congratulated Punjab Congress president and CM elect Captain Amarinder Singh on the party’s landslide victory in the recently concluded assembly polls in the state. Captain Amarinder, who steered the party to its decisive win in Punjab, met Rahul Gandhi at the latter’s residence in New Delhi to personally thank him for the support extended to him during the polls by the party high command, particularly the Congress vice president as well president Sonia Gandhi. The CM designate invited Rahul to attend the swearing-in ceremony slated for Thursday morning in Chandigarh. Captain Amarinder is scheduled to be sworn in as the new chief minister of Punjab, along with a few cabinet members. This was the first meeting between the two after the Punjab elections. At the meeting, Rahul expressed the confidence that Punjab would once again rise to its true potential under a Congress government. The PPCC president and CLP leader told mediapersons after the 10-minute meeting that it was a courtesy call. There was no discussion on cabinet formation during the meeting, he said in response to a question. To another question, Captain Amarinder said the time was right now to elevate Rahul Gandhi as party president and added that he had been maintaining this since the past one year.Captain Amarinder lashed out at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for refusing it accept its defeat gracefully, saying that instead of acknowledging that his party had failed to connect with the voters of Punjab, Arvind Kejriwal was taking refuge in making allegations about EVMs, which, incidentally, his own party workers had been guarding. AAP workers were camping outside the EVM centres, he pointed out, adding that it was evident that Kejriwal was unable to digest the loss of power and face as a result of the assembly poll outcome in Punjab, which he had been hoping to leverage to further his national ambitions.